A turnkey optimization service that gives you results in days rather than weeks or months: Plunify

Plunify makes life easier for users of FPGAs by removing barriers in the design process and saving valuable time as well as resources. Started in 2009 by two passionate engineers, Plunify focuses on optimizing chip design performance, starting with FPGA applications. The ever-increasing complexities of FPGA devices and design flows brings new challenges every year. Harnessing increasingly-affordable compute resources, Plunify creates innovative solutions to optimize designs and accelerate product time-to-market.

Plunify’s first product was the EDAxtend platform, a cloud platform specifically designed to let engineers offload complex chip design builds. With cloud computing, data can be generated and analyzed cheaply. From machine learning-driven insights, Plunify created new products for FPGA design, such as the InTime software. InTime is an expert software that optimizes FPGA design performance. Running on top of major FPGA tools, InTime delivers results quickly and enables higher productivity. It was the first commercial application of machine learning that enables chip design companies to significantly accelerate product Time-To-Market and reduce development costs.

Currently Plunify has operations in Singapore, Malaysia, China and Japan and counts Fortune Global 500 companies as clients.

3 Essential Considerations for FPGA Design in The Cloud

Plunify and Xilinx announced a partnership to make Vivado available on the Plunify Cloud platform, which operates on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. This is the first time that any fully-featured FPGA software is available under an on-demand cloud model. Cloud adoption is a huge step for any engineering organization. In this article, we discuss the key considerations, impact, benefits of cloud-enabled FPGA design, and how to improve the quality of results. The most obvious benefit of this partnership is the on-demand feature of cloud computing. Licenses and virtual servers are purchased as and when you need them, and only for the amount of time you used them. Resource flexibility and scalability, safeguards you from over- or under-provisioning important resources that might have an adverse impact on your projects further down the road. It also removes the burden of on-premise infrastructure maintenance.

The most overlooked benefit is the potential of (almost) unlimited compute power and licenses. FPGA teams are generally smaller and do not normally work with massive compute farms like their ASIC cousins. The typical FPGA design methodology is based on a setup of what we call the “one engineer, one computer” model.  This model has worked well for the past decade. However, with increasing design complexity and larger device densities, we see that this approach is reaching its limitations. For higher-end device families, build runtime goes up to 24 hours, are more resource-hungry, and the number of build iterations have been steadily increasing.

1. Providing Ease-of-use for FPGA Designers

One of the free-to-download tools under the Plunify Cloud platform is the FPGA Expansion Pack for Vivado. This is a Xilinx Vivado plugin that adds cloud-enhanced functionality right into your Vivado toolbar to speed up design compilations. Together with a Plunify Cloud account, this plugin enables you to conveniently build and optimize designs on tens, even hundreds of Amazon Web Services machines at the same time.

The Expansion Pack enables the user to conveniently click a few buttons to offload compilations to the cloud, check results without having to deal with any cloud infrastructure or file transfer tool. The other key benefit is when the compilation is completed, results can be downloaded back into Vivado and debugged locally. The process is seamless to the user and this significantly lowers the learning curve.

2. Using a Cloud Management Solution (Built for FPGA Designers by FPGA Designers)

AWS is an open platform with transparent pricing – anyone can sign up. An organization must decide between managing the cloud themselves or work with a cloud management platform like Plunify Cloud.

Cloud Considerations

1. With more than 90 server types on AWS, what type of servers are more suitable and what are the pros and cons?
2. How to upload design files securely to the cloud? Similarly, how to download result files securely?
3. What should be the retention policy for data storage in the cloud? How should it be stored securely even temporarily?
4. How do we ensure that we have the right Vivado versions in the cloud and the necessary licenses to support each of them? Who will maintain these versions and licenses?
5. How do we optimize for cost? What can we do to prevent hidden and unforeseen bills, e.g. excessive file transfer bandwidth?
6. How do we track usage? Which team or who is using more resources and licenses?

Q. Why use a cloud management platform?

Increasing the IT burden on your FPGA engineers is not the best use of their time. To address these concerns, the Plunify Cloud platform offers a complete management solution. Our recommendations and best practices are derived from the experience of handling thousands of compilations across multiple device families, tool vendors, and more projects than what a typical company may see in a lifetime.

3. Achieving Better Quality of Results

This is the part of the iceberg that is beneath the water’s surface. How do you turn unlimited and affordable compute power and licenses into a competitive advantage? The first concept that comes to  mind is the use of a brute-force approach to sweep compilation parameters. It is the least mentally taxing of the methods, but it is very inefficient and generally unsuccessful.

Harnhua NG, Founder, CEO

“Don't settle for mediocre performance. Extract maximum performance from your Vivado and Quartus tools, locally or on the cloud.”